Barbaloot – A wonderful little hack n slash set in the D&D universe. Every version of the game is excellent, though the PS2 and Xbox versions are still clearly superior to the Gamecube one. With super good combat, pretty damn good visuals, and a pretty decent leveling system, this game is, at once, very representitive of the D&D property, as well as a great entry in the Hack n Slash genre. Topped off by amazing music by Jeremy Soule, who you no doubt know from his work with The Elder Scrolls and Putt Putt.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2

Barbaloot – An overall improvement to the first game, which in itself was already very good. Same great visuals, same great music, same great combat. But now the story is a lot more in-depth, and is overall better than before. To add to that, weapon upgrading became a thing, and while expensive to get really amazing weapons from it, it can make even slightly less-than-good weapons completely viable later in the game.

Guitar Hero: World Tour

Barbaloot – While nowhere nearly as popular as it’s older siblings Guitar Hero 2 and 3, this iteration is still an excellent inclusion to the series. The first to adopt the Rock Band model of having multiple instruments, this is as much of a party game, more so even, as the other titles. The music selection can be a bit dumb sometimes (La Bamba and Eye of the Tiger comes to mind), but otherwise has an excellent setlist to rock the absolute fuck out to. (Hot for Teacher, Vicarious, Mr. Crowley) With the ability to customize even your instruments now, this is quite the jam!

Silent Hill 2

Kuro – My single favorite game ever; it does things that few other games even attempt to do. There isn’t a simple, universally-accepted definition of art, but one criterion is whether or not a work rewards analysis; if we look closely, and think about the details, will we realize something about the painting/poem/movie/game that isn’t immediately obvious otherwise, something that enriches our experience with the work? In SH2’s case, yes. It succeeds as art in ways that many other games, including later games in the SH series, have tried and failed to follow.